When Matt returns from getting food, someone has broken into the cabin. How do you know it is not Ben? Who was it?

The two students who answered above are correct. Matt hadn't closed the door properly, and a bear broke into the cabin to scavenge for any food that he could find. Ben would have taken things he could use or sell as well as the food. Much of the food was spilled or dirtied so that a human would find it inedible. Even though Matt tried to scrape up the spilled flour and save what he...

The two students who answered above are correct. Matt hadn't closed the door properly, and a bear broke into the cabin to scavenge for any food that he could find. Ben would have taken things he could use or sell as well as the food. Much of the food was spilled or dirtied so that a human would find it inedible. Even though Matt tried to scrape up the spilled flour and save what he could, there was next to nothing left. These supplies could not be made by settlers on the frontier. There weren't the facilities to grind and refine the wheat into flour, and molasses is made from sugar cane. Maine is too cold to grow sugar. Matt will have to rely on Maine's bounty to survive.